Equal Pay: Female Lab Workers Charge Pay Bias

An Alameda County Superior Court judge has certified a class action lawsuit on behalf of as many as 10,000 women who claim they were passed over for promotions and paid less than male colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. An attorney representing the scientists estimated that the employer may face damages of more than $250 million. A spokesman for the lab, which is run by the University of California, said it has worked to address pay equity. The lab said that in 1990 it gave female workers an across-the-board pay hike in response to this concern. We’ll have more on equal pay issues in next month’s newsletter, including a discussion of new equal pay guidelines recently released by the EEOC.